Just finished our first playthrough, a 4-person game where 2 of us have more gaming experience (role-playing, board, etc), and two are more casual gamers.

By the by, if you're reading this, I'm assuming you've looked at the rules (available at the publisher's site, apegames.com). So a couple things might not make sense if you haven't.

Components: Much as expected, hundreds and hundreds of cards. If you like the comic, you'll like the art. If you think OotS is poorly drawn and unfunny, you'll never make it to this review anyways. Everything seems reasonably durable, which is good considering our one playthrough required a reshuffle of two of the three decks.

Length: Longer than expected. A short (3 level) game ran nearly 6 hrs. Of course, the constant distractions of a 1 year old and a 2 month old around the table contributed somewhat to the lengthening--but it still probably would have run 4-5 hours. Probably more of a contributing factor was the tallying of multiple bonuses for the non-gamers. Which brings us to...

Gameplay: This is where people will be really split. People with experience with games like D&D will do well, due to the ease of experience with adding multiple bonuses (Example: when Roy battled Thog, it wasn't just a matter of factoring in Thog's +3 bonus for being Roy's nemesis--he also had to factor in the three Boosts to his Greenhilt Sword, the two Boosts to his Great Cleavage...and then and in those Boosts to Great Cleavage 2 more times, for the other monsters in the room already killed). For some, it's a matter of seconds adding it up. Someone else at the table might have to take a minute on each option, maybe longer. So it's not for every group, by any means. People had fun, but by the end, several were tired of the constant Math quizzes, and others were getting impatient with the slow pace.
That being said, many of the Shticks that came into play had more powerful Attack than Defense values, while the first combat in a new room always placed the player on Defense. So combats often revolved around surviving the first battle, then slaughtering everything left (Roy's Great Cleavage, Vaarsuvius' Fireball, and Haley's Sneak Attack all come to mind--with a little Boosting, the player kills the first monster in any way possible, then plows through everything left quickly using the higher Attack values of many Shticks).
The mechanic for repopulating rooms seemed a bit unwieldly. Any time you enter an empty room, new monsters come out and you have to fight them. If another character, or even another monster, is in the room, you don't have to stop. So I sometimes found myself purposely leaving a monster alive at the end just to keep the room populated, sacrificing the treasure you might otherwise get (which could be construed as part of the cooperative part of it).
The cooperation amongst players was a bit odd. Some characters benefit from helping you (Roy can heal or get back flipped schticks, by being the Fearless Leader), and some benefit you more by asking for assistance (Elan's Bard Song can provide an insane +6 for a single Loot icon when fully Boosted--plus I think there was at least one equipable Loot that Boosted it further), but the help is always the same flat bonus. You're often limited in who you can ask for aid (only on your floor and not resting), which represents a real danger for the first one down to a new floor, or the last one on a finished floor. And the benefit is always a flat +2--a more varied approach might be nice. Fore instance, no matter how much assistance you get from magic-wielding comrades, it doesn't matter if all you're wielding are Weapon-type Shticks and your enemy is immune to that type of attack.
PvP combat never came up. I didn't really expect it with the group we had, especially since no one played Belkar. Belkar has numerous abilities to make life painful for other characters, maybe a few too many--just looking through his Shticks it appears he may be a bit too weak against many regular monsters because he's focused so much on PvP.
Combat seemed a bit unbalanced, as well. Our play didn't involve Belkar and Elan, both of whom benefit from other things than killing everything in sight (well, for Belkar it's killing every player in sight). But that still left Durkon, weakest of the remaining group in combat. It appears that his optimum strategy is Curing everyone possible, but that still isn't as efficient for gaining Shticks as combat, so you'll be perpetually lagging behind the others, especially as you have to constantly rest to unflip your Cures. V spends a reasonable amount of time resting, as well, although he makes up for it with the sheer destructive power of several of his Shticks. Haley gets strong quickly, especially if she starts with both Sneak Attack and Longbow, but then seems to slow down, while Roy seems to snowball as he gets more and more Greenhilt Swords and Great Cleavages. When the aforementioned Thog battle occured, he was only the 3rd or 4th monster in the deck (yes, Roy's player added it himself), but by then Roy was hitting a 16+ without even rolling.

Overall: Still a fun game. Maybe not for everybody, but I think everyone enjoyed it...although again, the long length might be a deterent for future plays. We may try to tweak things to get it to run faster (smaller floors, or easier to move from room to room without having to leave monsters alive in each room), but I'm fairly sure it will be coming back to the table again soon.

Sounds like you got one rule wrong- the assistance bonus is not always +2. It is +2 for every icon on the loot of the person you're asking for assistance. So you could get +4 or +6 if you part with the appropriate loot. Plus, it's not clear in the rules, but the FAQ states that you can give more than one loot to a character for assistance to boost it more and you can always ask more than one character for assistance.

I think this is probably why your game took so long.
It's anytime you finish your movement in an empty room that it gets re-populated by the bashees. I'm sure it will play faster this way.

There's a lot of encouragement from the game to play competitively from the start. By that, I mean: mess with the other players. I think that's what drags the game. I suggest playing cooperatively (or at worst mildly competitve) until you reach the final level before entering Xykon's lair. Then the gloves can come off and folks make their power plays.

At any rate, the game shouldn't last more than a couple hours. I mean, when you start recycling decks and the old jokes start to repeat, the fun factor begins to drop steeply.

Good review!

I feel you also give an unfair acount(prehaps unintentionaly so) of some of the characters. Both Durkon and Belkar can become amazing monster beaters, it just relies on you playing them with a bit of forethought. Belkar's leap attack is truly horrfing and Thor's lighting is a very effective way of taking out monsters fast. I personaly feel that the OoTSers are quite well balanced against each other, often they all take two turns to beat a monster at early levels (big defence then bigger attck) and at later levels they are all powerful enoguh to deal with certain types of creature easily (but not all of them, that would be unfair and boring). Belkars desire to attack other party members is somwhat mitigated by the fact that everyone has a very meaty deffence schtik that is quite easy to get (or even on their starting schtiks)

Actually, didn't play with Belkar or Elan in the initial game. I have played a separate game with Belkar, but it was only 2 player, and B really struggles in such a situation. The problem with Leap Attack is that it requires others to leave monsters behind--leaving them behind yourself is just an invite for others to move in and kill them before it's your turn again, and in a 2-player game, that doesn't always happen (especially against my wife--she's fine in multiplayer games, but with only 2 players and any sort of dice involved, she's an absolute monster--last time she made it to the third level before missing a roll, and that was a draw). The other problem with Belkar is that his max bonus on the first roll is typically still +1 at lower levels, meaning he often still has to resort to tactics like "Hide" while everyone else is mowing down the enemy. Unless it happens to be his Hated Foe and he uses Halfling Rage--but then he's still often taking a point of damage, which can stack up quickly.

As for Durkon, part of it was likely the player. Like I said in the title, it was just a first impression after our initial play. I like Durkon overall, he just takes a bit more skill than, say, Haley or Roy. Thor's Hammer gets good quickly, while Thor's Lightning is a decent attack as well. I think one of his biggest strengths, though, is Turn Undead (given that he can't use it on Xykon, but can use it on the stack that he's in to eliminate all of his supporting Undead at once--and Rich Burlew has confirmed this is a valid tactic). I have yet to see Cure used effectively--I think it just requires a large group with someone who can use Durkon effectively (and we haven't had that combo yet).